This invention relates to the Armstrong process as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,779,761, 5,958,106 and 6,409,797, the disclosures of each of which is incorporated herein by reference. As illustrated in the above-referenced patents, a reductant metal and a halide of the metal to be produced are introduced into a reactor chamber. For instance, in the '106 patent, a sodium stream from a source of sodium is pumped by a pump 11 into a reaction chamber 14. Titanium tetrachloride from a source thereof is fed by a pump 21 to a boiler 22. From the boiler 22, titanium tetrachloride vapor is also pumped to the reaction chamber 14.
The present invention relates in general to the Armstrong Process as described above but also more specifically to the reactor used in converting a halide vapor into a powder, either of ceramic or metal or alloy. More particularly, the invention relates in part to a needle valve used to introduce halide vapor into the liquid metal, such as sodium, providing significant advantages to the Armstrong Process. In another aspect of the invention, a supersonic nozzle is used for the introduction of the halide vapor to improve the mixing of the vapor with the liquid, reducing the expansion of the gas into the liquid which occurs with a sonic nozzle, thereby modifying the reactions advantageously.